I found that I love to dream - to create - to write.
To write.
Huh. I can honestly say I didn't really see that one coming. I have always liked to write and communicate - don't get me wrong. I just never really looked at it as something I could professionally do. My aunt is a writer and though she has been doing it a long time... I never wanted to be compared to her. My mother is fine artist and while I can draw... I never wanted to be compared to her, either. I wanted to make my own way. I guess I have, in a round about way. I am able to blend and merge these two world and in an ideal world, it would be successful.
What is success to me? Loving what I do - for no one but myself.
Let's face it, I can't really get myself to go away (to coin a phrase from Matchbox 20).
It all started sometime back in September when I had lunch with a very dear friend. I asked her what she saw in me and what career pops into her mind first. She told me, a writer. From that moment, we started discussing things for story ideas and I actually started to... dare I say it... excited! For the first time in a long time, the future didn't look daunting... it looked, INTERESTING!
Which, in some ways is weird because writing a novel is challenging. Especially if you are as crazy as me. Things have to make sense. There has to be back stories, the characters have to make sense... even the names can be painstaking. There has to be twists and turns and events that drive the character to fully accept their world and the lives they lead.
In retrospect, I realize that perhaps, I have always wanted to write - but because of my damn drive to be different and repel the norm, I was pushing away a calling. It may not be my ONLY calling, but for right now, it is and that means something.
I have always admired people who can tell a story - Joss Whedon (he's my hero), J.K Rowling, Suzanne Collins (my current obsession), Amy Sherman-Palladino (the mastermind behind Gilmore Girls), even Stephanie Meyer... While I love the stories that are spun and take what I can from their messages, what has always stayed with me, are the people behind them. Maybe it's just a crazy, new age view - but I think I was getting signs from the universe.
When I was 13, I woke up from a dream so vivid that I could have sworn it was a past life. In this life, I was coming back to my home - one I hadn't seen in so long. Somewhere in the dream I entered a secret room that I never even knew existed and it opened my dream self to a new world of magic. When I woke up, I sat down and wrote about it. I was absolutely compelled to do so. Every day after school, I was at our family's 1990 IBM, typing feverishly. When I was done, I turned it in to my English Teacher for extra credit and promptly stuffed it into my closet.
Through the years, that story has stayed with me... I have carried it from house to house... city to city. But I have always known where it is, even when I wasn't thinking about it. Something in the back of my mind has kept it sacred. To this day, I can still see clearly the room in my dream... the way the sun shone in, the smell, the wallpaper that peeled away reveling a small hidden door inside this hidden room... going down the steps that were behind that other door...
When I took the advice of my friend and started to consider the possibility of writing... something peculiar happened. Ideas came flooding in. Not just for one story, but many - and I couldn't make them stop. It was becoming so overwhelming that I finally sat down to have a meditation with my Muse - so I could ask which ONE should I start with?
My answer? You pick. Until then, I'm keeping them coming. HA!
Another odd thing also took place - I found that I was suddenly surrounded by a wonderful fountain of like minded people! There were amazing writers that I could talk to and be involved with, that were right in front of me already! Some, as young as my brilliant 15 year old friend, Maggie. Others, as old as my parents. They have all been so helpful and receptive, and I feel so blessed to be taken in so graciously.
About a month ago - on 10/10/10, to be exact, I had an amazing idea literally FALL into my head. I wasn't even thinking about books. I was outside playing with my children on a crisp October morning; heck for all I know it was 10:10am! (In all seriousness, it was in the 10am hour! LOL!)
So I am now in the process of writing what is looking like a 4 to 5 book series. I have spent the majority of the past month writing all my ideas down, letting them come as they want and not judging them. Asking questions, seeing if I get answers... I have pages upon pages of notes.
Now, I am taking on a challenge to write 1667 words a day for the entire month of November. While some are doing it for a contest, I am doing it for the love of a challenge. I'm nothing if not good with a challenge! ;) At this very moment, my first real novel sits at 5,958 words and my goal is to be to 8,335 by today's end. (For those of you good with math, I only managed to write close to 1000 words yesterday, so I am playing catch up.)
Even if nothing comes out of it and the book or books never get published, I know that I am enjoying this process and being free to create without feeling bad. I am letting my creative voice free and it feels GOOD!
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